Chapter Two: In a Flash
There was someone in the apartment, Kakashi knew it as he approached. He knew it wasn't Iruka, but it took him a minute to recognize the chakra. When he did, he sighed, resolutely stuck his key in the lock and turned it, pulsing his chakra to disarm the traps in a way that had become routine for him by now. There were no alarms going off, but of course the man in his lover's apartment wouldn't have set any off, had probably gotten in the exact same way Kakashi did, in fact.
The living room was chaos. The low table had been pushed out of the way, and on the floor were several photo albums and a couple of leather-bound journals. In the center of the mess a man sat on a cushion, his light brown hair covered by a bandana, but conspicuously missing the long metal needle that he usually carried in his mouth. After looking around for a moment, Kakashi spotted the needle stuck in the coffee table.
The man sitting in the floor looked up in surprise, and quickly closed the album sitting on his lap. Looking closely, Kakashi realized it wasn't one he recognized… all the ones Iruka normally kept on his bookshelf had brown leather covers, like the journals that Iruka favored. This one was covered in a sort of black and burgundy print silk instead, and Kakashi noticed there were two more like it amongst the mess. "Oh no, Kakashi… I…" said the man, looking up at Kakashi as worried the silver-haired shinobi might snap and just kill him.
Kakashi waved a hand at him, moving to sit carefully in his favorite chair. "It's okay, Genma, if Iruka didn't want you here, you wouldn't have a key."
Genma didn't relax, still sitting up straight and holding the album to his chest. "I guess I forgot," he said lamely.
This made Kakashi pay attention. For Genma to be sitting in Iruka's living room looking at old pictures was a little weird, but not entirely unlikely if he was having problems with Raidou. But was Genma saying he had forgotten Kakashi lived here too, or that Iruka was with Kakashi at all? "Genma, we're friends, really. Please stop looking at me like I'm going to kill you," he said, putting his best happy expression into his posture and small portion of visible face.
The panic went out of Genma's eyes then, and the tension seemed to drain out of him. "I thought I'd just wait for Ruka to come home," he said softly. "I always look at pictures when I'm waiting for him. He has so many pictures…"
Kakashi swept his eyes around the room at the albums on the floor, and then looked back up to the still-packed bookcase. "Yes, he does. He doesn't take them that often anymore, except of his students or at special occasions. It's amazing how many he took before though. I even found a few of me among his collections, from before I even really knew who he was."
Genma nodded. "He has pictures of just about everyone, even quite a few civilians, and just about every kid from that time. Funny that we didn't realize he'd become a teacher, but he was just such a troublemaker himself that it seemed impossible. He took so many pictures, though, rolls and rolls of film on some days. I nearly went broke on his photography supplies for a while there."
Kakashi gestured to the album in Genma's hands, trying to be casual about it. "Where'd you get that one, and the others like it? It wasn't on the bookcase."
The brown-haired man's eyes widened. "Don't tell me you didn't know where these were?"
Kakashi shook his head, trying to resist the urge to make a grab at one of the albums in question. Genma was in uniform, which meant he likely had plenty of weapons on him, and he seemed confused enough to likely attack Kakashi in his own home if he made such an overt attempt. "No, I've never seen them," he said simply, instead.
The other man loosened his grip a bit on the album he was holding, then laid it on the floor in front of him, but didn't open it. "I don't think you should probably see," he said hesitantly. He reached up and pulled his bandana off his head, running his hand through his fine hair. "It's sort of Iruka's erotic collection. I can't believe you didn't know about them, actually."
Kakashi's head spun a little. The very first time he'd been in Iruka's apartment, Iruka had told him that his photo albums were embarrassing, and at the time Kakashi had wondered if they were sexy. But he'd found that they were merely embarrassing in terms of Iruka doing silly kid stuff, or pictures of people after one too many drinks, or pranks. Nothing erotic or questionable, though some of the journals had a few erotic entries. Even with those, Kakashi felt like he was coming in during the middle somewhere, as if there were whole books missing that held things he wasn't being allowed to see. He'd merely accepted it, because Iruka had a right to his privacy, and he figured it entirely possible that the journals that seemed "missing" had been destroyed or lost at some point. Now he was finding out not only that there were erotic pictures, but that Genma still knew where to find them, while Kakashi didn't.
"He had made it sound like some were taken, but no, I didn't know where to find them, and I haven't looked," Kakashi said quietly, feeling like he might choke. He still wanted to grab the album and look at it, truth be told, but he also wished he hadn't asked.
Genma smirked up at him as if reading his mind, and casually reached out and flipped the cover open. Kakashi gave in to curiosity, got up from his chair, carefully moved a few albums out of the way, and took a seat beside his friend. His eye fixed on the first page of the album, and he was instantly struck by the image of a young-looking Iruka posing provocatively and flirting with the camera, wearing nothing but a pair of burgundy boxers and… a collar? Kakashi raised an eyebrow at Genma.
A fresh senbon was procured from Genma's vest, and he stuck it in his mouth and twitched it a little. "Oh, that was my birthday. He took the pictures before I came home actually, and stuck them up around the house, knowing that we would miss each other most of the day doing our various jobs, and then that evening he was dressed the same way when I came to bed. The whole set is pretty nice," he said, smiling to himself.
Kakashi was spellbound. He flipped through the pages one after another, watching as the young man in the pictures posed, pranced, and pleasured himself. It was somehow both arousing and endearing, because his expression was extremely sweet, whatever he was doing. Every photo glowed with not just sensuality but also playfulness and love. Kakashi's heart clenched, because he'd barely known Iruka at this time, couldn't even have told you his name despite spending hours technically in the same places with friends, and if you'd asked he might have been able to tell you the kid could play a mean game of Capture the Flag. Maybe.
"No wonder Iruka never showed me these," Kakashi said, wonderingly. "If they were just sex… he wouldn't have minded, I think." Kakashi paused. "Wait, who took these if you weren't home?"
"Iruka, with a time lapse feature. No one but he or I ever took those kinds of pictures of him, except Kotetsu and Izumo once when they were all very drunk." The light eyes narrowed, and he muttered, "Weird little monkeys" under his breath.
Another eyebrow raise from Kakashi, but he said nothing, too busy swimming in all the things he did not know. He flipped wordlessly through the album. Some of the photos were downright kinky, but others were so achingly loving and gentle. The very last photo in the book was Genma sleeping, curled up naked with a soft smile on his face, somehow looking strangely innocent and sated at the same time. Kakashi looked from the face in the picture to the face of the shinobi in front of him, the man he'd fought alongside too many times to count, had drank with and played with over the years. It was hard to reconcile them, and he sighed and closed the album, feeling not like a voyeur but like a witness to some great tragedy. "I don't think I should be looking at these," he said wearily, running a hand through his messy hair.
Genma picked up the album, along with the other ones like it and stood, then sat down again. "I'd put them away, but maybe I should let Iruka do it. I shouldn't be nosing around your place, I'm sorry. I forgot," he said, again.
"Why are you here?" asked Kakashi, vaguely annoyed now at the repetition.
Genma slumped a bit, and for a moment Kakashi thought he wasn't going to answer. Then he met Kakashi's dark eye with his hazel one, and said, "I was waiting for Iruka, because I'm going to fall apart, and I need him to keep me together. Raidou and I…" He paused. "I don't know yet actually, but I think it might be over." When that didn't get any reaction from Kakashi, he clenched his teeth hard around his senbon and ground out, "Did you know?"
A new voice joined the conversation then, and both of the men sitting in the floor jumped. "Raidou hinted at it almost two weeks ago, but we didn't think interfering would have done any good," came the soft voice from the doorway. Iruka stood there in his uniform, looking down at them with an almost blank expression. "I nearly brought one of my students home for dinner, but now I'm glad I didn't, with what you two have out," he added, his eyes brushing over the silk-covered albums.
Genma yelped, and Kakashi looked up guiltily. "Sorry, Iruka, I shouldn't have looked, but he had them already when I got here," Kakashi said quickly, but Iruka waved it away. In fact, his wave seemed almost a dismissal, because he immediately walked right by Kakashi and sank to the ground, wrapping his arms around the man at his side. He reached out and snagged the senbon from Genma's mouth, burying it into the table carelessly. "Gen-chan, what happened?"
"I don't know exactly. One minute we were out walking together, and the next he was saying he had rented an apartment, and he wanted to take a break, and he was sorry, and just on and on with this stuff without really saying why or what was going on, and he didn't say he was leaving me exactly, just that he wanted a break, but he was holding his hand over his scars and when I made a grab for it he jumped away like I had burned him…" Genma rambled, shaking.
"He doesn't want to cut his ties completely, because he isn't sure yet what he wants, but he's hurting," Iruka said softly. "I didn't know he was already making arrangements to leave you, he just asked me if I would be angry with him if he did."
Genma snapped around to face Iruka. "Don't be angry with him!" he said in a panicky voice.
"Shh," said Iruka consolingly, as if he were talking to a child. "No, I told him even then I wouldn't be." Then he looked up at his lover, and said, "Kakashi, will you make us tea?"
Kakashi was grateful for his mask, happy that he hadn't taken it off when he came in, because it allowed him to look at Iruka impassively and nod. It strengthened him as he stood, walked stiffly from the room, and made tea while his lover sat in the middle of their living room floor and held another man, speaking so softly that even Kakashi's keen ears couldn't pick out the words.